My Favorite Web Development Podcasts

March 31, 2018 · 5 minute read

Around the time I graduated from my programming bootcamp in March 2017, I started listening to programming podcasts to scratch the itch of continuous learning and to keep myself engaged with the world of web development.

Although I started with just a handful, almost a third of my Podcast Addict app is now filled with them. Some are more specific to a programming niche, tech stack, languages, or frameworks while others are broad and all-encompassing. Some are purely educational while others are conversational and topical to current tech trends.

Syntax

Wes Bos and Scott Tolinksi’s podcast quickly became my favorite and most listened to web development podcast once it was released. It’s the only one on this list that I have listened to in its entirety and new episodes are always at the top of my playlist.

Syntax is more of a JavaScript and front-end development podcast but covers all sorts of topics from website optimization tips, CSS grid, productivity hacks, JavaScript tooling, static site generators, and freelancing.

Although it’s immediately evident that Scott and Wes are React-centric developers, they do a great job of covering other frameworks, technologies, and broad programming topics. They keep each show interesting and I often find myself pausing to take notes on their development tips and suggestions.

Suggested Episodes

Front End Happy Hour

A podcast that fuses together two web developer hobbies: programming and drinking.
Front End Happy Hour is made up of a diverse panel of web developers and UI engineers from companies like Netflix, LinkedIn, Evernote, Atlassian, and Microsoft. Although it’s primarily a front-end developer show, a lot of subjects — such as “freelancing” or “migrating code” — are quite broad and would appeal to the larger programming community.

The format of the show is pretty amusing — each episode is based around a different topic and a keyword related to that topic is announced. Whenever this word is spoken by panelist, everyone takes sip of their beer, whiskey, gin, or other drink of choice. If I didn’t normally listen to the show in the mornings before going to work, I’d probably be tempted to join in.

Suggested Episodes

Shop Talk Show

Dave Rupert and Chris Coyier are the stars in Show Talk Show, a podcast about front-end web development, design, and UX. I like the variety in this show because each week, the hosts present questions from listeners and then answer them. Sometimes, they are joined by guests who give compelling responses of their own.

This show covers a lot of different topics in each episode and they’re not all necessarily related to one another. In each episode, I find that a good handful of questions posed by the developer community are on topics I’m also interested in so this show always keeps my attention. The only qualm I have is that Dace and Chris don’t always have the time to allocate to any one topic fully.

Suggested Episodes

Developer Tea

Developer Tea is a fairly short (~10-20 minutes) podcast with a broad educational scope. Since episodes are so abbreviated, host Jonathan Cutrell doesn’t dive too deeply into any one topic. If he does, it’s spread out among several episodes.

This is a thought-provoking and educational podcast that helps developers understand concepts and to become better programmers and people. Jonathan describes its purpose as: to help driven developers connect to their ultimate purpose and excel at their work so that they can positively impact the people they influence.

Suggested Episodes

The Hanselminutes Podcast

Hosted by Scott Hanselman, The Hanselminutes Podcast is one of the podcasts I most recently started listening to. Like many programming podcasts, the host interviews many personas from the programming community. Scott brings on many guests that dive into some interesting topics specific to the web but also explores broader though-provoking topics.